The present invention comprises a new Ipomoea, botanically known as Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam, and commonly known as Ornamental Sweet Potato, and hereinafter referred to by the variety name ‘Seki Blapalm.’ These plants are grown, not for their flowers, but for their foliage and plant habit characteristics. These plants flower very rarely and then only under strict short day lengths. Each flower is ephemeral, in that it only lasts up to 24 hours, and blooms mostly through the night and early morning hours.
‘Seki Blapalm’ is a product of a planned breeding program. The new cultivar ‘Seki Blapalm’ has a compact and mounding plant habit that becomes more outwardly trailing with age, vigorous, freely branching with dense foliage, and very dark, almost black palmately lobed foliage, with soft purple-violet and white flowers.
‘Seki Blapalm’ originated from an open pollination in a controlled breeding program in Gilroy, Calif. USA. The female parent was ‘Sweet Caroline Purple’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 14,912). ‘Sweet Caroline Purple’ has a less compact plant habit, shorter petioles and lighter colored foliage than ‘Seki Blapalm.’ The male parent of ‘Seki Blapalm’ was unknown.
‘Seki Blapalm’ was selected as one flowering plant within the progeny of the stated cross in March 2007, in a controlled environment in Gilroy, Calif. USA. The pollination took place in July 2006 and the seed sown in December 2006.
The first act of asexual reproduction of ‘Seki Blapalm’ was accomplished when vegetative cuttings were taken from the initial selection in the March 2007 in a controlled environment in Gilroy, Calif. USA.
Horticultural examination of plants grown from cuttings of the plant initiated in March 2007 in Gilroy, Calif. USA, and continuing thereafter, has demonstrated that the combination of characteristics as herein disclosed for ‘Seki Blapalm’ are firmly fixed and are retained through successive generations of asexual reproduction.
‘Seki Blapalm’ has not been observed under all possible environmental conditions. The phenotype may vary significantly with variations in environment such as temperature, light intensity and day length.
A Plant Breeder's Right for this cultivar was applied for in Canada on Dec. 24, 2007. ‘Seki Blapalm’ has not been made publicly available more than one year prior to the filing of this application.